


Currents

by SailorChibi



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste Acts Like Chat Noir, Gen, Identity Reveal, Protective Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Swimming, adrien agreste has cat-like tendencies, cats hate water, kwami tendencies, you'll never convince me otherwise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 04:30:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16381427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorChibi/pseuds/SailorChibi
Summary: No one hates swimming as much as Chat Noir does. It can't be a coincidence.





	Currents

"Holy shit, Marinette, what happened to your arm?!"

"Oh. It's noticeable, huh?" Marinette sank back onto the bench and wrapped her towel around her shoulders.

"Noticeable?!" Alya repeated. "Yeah, just a bit." She plucked at the edge of the towel, pushing it aside until the edge of the bruising was visible. "What happened?"

"I was trying to get a bag of flour for Maman and one fell on me," Marinette said. The lie came easily to her lips after months of practice, and it was a reasonable explanation for the fact that her right arm, from elbow up to her collarbone, was bruised black and purple. 

The truth was that there had been an akuma yesterday. Ladybug and Chat Noir had gotten a little too close for that akuma's liking. It had literally thrown them both into a building. She'd taken the impact on her right side, whereas Chat Noir had taken it on his left. Somewhere out there, Marinette thought, there was a boy in Paris who had similar bruising on his left side. Because while the suits could absorb most of the damage, that hit had been hard enough that Marinette was very lucky to walk away with just some bruising. She should've had a broken shoulder or worse. 

Alix whistled softly. "You need to be more careful. That could've killed you. Those things are heavy."

"It looks worse than it is," Marinette reassured her friends. "I don't know how much I'll be able to swim, though."

"You've got a good excuse," Alya said, wrapping an arm around Marinette's shoulders. She urged Marinette to get up and they walked out into the pool area in a small cluster with their classmates. The smell of chlorine was heavy enough that Marinette's nose wrinkled. 

"This is gonna be so much fun!" Rose squealed.

"Fun is relative. But at least we'll get to see the guys in their suits," Alya said. She winked at Marinette, who flushed.

"There's Kim," Alix said suddenly. She took off.

Alya sighed at her. "Those two have to make everything into a competition. Come on, Marinette. Let's sit down."

Marinette followed her best friend to the bench and sat, keeping her pink towel wrapped around her. She pulled it up, hiding behind it as their male classmates started to follow Kim out of the locker room. Her eyes searched for, and found, a head of blond hair, and she sucked in a covetous breath. Adrien was wearing green swimming trunks. There was a white towel resting over his shoulders, but she could still see patches of his bare chest. And she'd seen it before, of course, because Adrien had modeled without a shirt before, but it was totally different seeing it in purpose. It made her heart pound so hard she thought it might pop.

"Sexy," Alya breathed, watching Nino closely. 

Marinette squeaked in response. Adrien and Nino were walking around the pool, heading towards them. She didn't know what she would do if Adrien got too close. Explode, maybe. She didn't know if it was a relief or not when they stopped, standing on the edge of the pool. Adrien was looking down into the water with a frown. He said something to Nino, gesturing at the water. Nino responded by shaking his head, which only made Adrien's frown deepen. Adrien lowered his head so that his hair fell over his face and started fiddling with the ring he always wore on his hand, sliding it almost all the way off before pushing it back up over his knuckle, then pulling it back down. 

"Okay, everyone," their teacher called out. "I need to run to the office for a minute. I want your solemn promise no one will go near the water till I come back."

Murmured assent trickled through the room. Predictably, the second the teacher was gone, Kim said to Alix, "I bet I can beat you in a race."

"What kind?" Alix said, eyes bright.

"One who does the most laps before the teacher comes back wins?" Kim asked.

"You're on!" Alix exclaimed. She turned, jostling with Kim, to get to the far side of the pool.

Marinette saw it happen in slow motion. She opened her mouth to call out a warning, but it was too late. Kim ran straight into Adrien and Nino. He made a grab for them and caught Nino's arm, but Adrien's foot slipped on the edge and he went straight into the pool.

"Oh my god!" Alya cried, surging to her feet. "Adrien!"

Adrien surfaced seconds later with an inhuman yowl that Marinette had only ever heard one other time in her life. That sound took her back to the time an akuma had thrown Chat Noir in the seine; her partner had come up spitting, hissing and yowling like a cat that had been tossed unexpectedly into a bath and didn't like it. She'd always known that Chat Noir didn't like getting wet - it made sense, to some extent, and it was the reason why Ladybug usually did their patrols alone on the nights when it rained - but that was her first taste of just how much he truly hated it.

She froze as Kim and Nino knelt at the edge of the pool and hauled the sputtering, hacking Adrien out. Her eyes took in the livid bruising on Adrien's left side, the way he was shaking himself off in disgust, how he hissed at Kim when Kim tried to apologize, and thought...

Oh my fucking god.

She suddenly thought she might know what Adrien and Nino were bickering about.

"My - my ring!" Adrien cried out suddenly, clutching his hand. "I lost my ring!"

His ring. Marinette wanted to slam her head against the nearest hard surface. Instead, she stood up.

"Hey dude, calm down. We'll get your ring. It was an accident," Nino was saying.

Adrien's towel was still floating in the pool. Marinette walked towards them, pulling her own towel off her shoulders. She stopped right in front of Adrien and gently draped it over his shoulders - if her suspicions were correct, he'd need the body heat. He looked up at her, green eyes still wide and dazed from his unexpected dunking.

"Don't worry, _mon petit minou noir_ ," she whispered. "I'll get your ring."

Adrien blinked dumbly at her. 

She stepped back and turned, jumping into the pool. Swimming wasn't her favorite activity, but she didn't hate water like her partner did. Marinette took a deep breath and ducked under the water, opening her eyes. She looked around for the ring, but it was hard to see something so small against the blue of the pool's bottom. She kicked her legs and used her one good arm to propel her down further; trying to use her right arm just made her whole body seize up with pain. She squinted, eyes tracking the bottom, and noticed a glint of light.

There it was.

Marinette stretched her good arm out, scooping the ring up. As soon as she touched it, a shiver of energy rushed up her arm, into her chest, through her neck and up to her earlobe, like Adrien's ring and her earrings were electricity and she was the current. She shivered, gasping, and kicked her way back to the surface as quickly as she could.

"Damn, girl!" Alya said, kneeling at the edge of the pool and holding a hand out. 

"Thanks," Marinette said, grabbing her hand. Alya helped her climb out.

"You're like Adrien's knight in shining armor," Alya whispered, grinning.

If only you knew, Marinette thought wryly. 

Adrien Agreste was Chat Noir. 

Holy fucking shit.

It was hard to freak out when her partner still looked like a drowned rat, though. Marinette knelt in front of him and offered him the ring. When he took it, she felt that same rush of energy. Adrien must have felt it too, because he startled and looked up at her. His eyes took in the bruising on her side. She could see the moment when everything - the nickname she'd used, the unusual reaction from the Miraculous, and the bruising - came together into one obvious solution. His eyes popped.

"M'lady?" he whispered, shocked.

Marinette smiled sheepishly. "Hello, _Chaton_."

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://tsuki-chibi.tumblr.com/%22).


End file.
